5 Arrested in Bronx as a Mobile Gang

Three students and two young men with steady jobs, said by the police to have been operating as a mobile mugging gang in the Bronx by using panel truck to stalk their victims, were arrested early yesterday morning.

The arrests came minutes after the suspects allegedly robbed three men at knifepoint in three separate incidents.

The police of the 50th Precinct, who arrested the five in the truck after a three‐block chase in the Riverdale section, said they were investigating the possibility that the group might have been involved in as many as 40 similar robberies in the Bronx in the last two months.

According to the police at the station house at 3101 Kingsbridge Terrace, one of the prisoners, Walter Sanders, a 23‐year‐old gas station attendant, his wrists handcuffed behind him, leaped head first through a window in an attempt to escape.

Apparently unaware that the building sits on a hill and that the ground floor rises a full story above the street in the rear, the prisoner fell 10 feet to the ground and was recaptured. the police said. He suffered minor injuries.

A spokesman at police headquarters said that the use of a panel truck for concealment and for following unsuspecting victims — or chasing them, according to one victim's account —was a new twist in the pattern of street robberies.

Also unusual was the background of those arrested. A least three of the five appeared to come from middle‐class homes—one was a college student—and none seemed to fit the stereotype of the addictmugger. None is a drug addict, the police said.

While Saturday nights usually bring an upsurge in crimes in the city, snow or any other kind of bad weather tends to reduce crime, so the police saw no particular significance in the timing of yesterday's incidents.

According to the police and the accounts of several of the victims, given in interviews yesterday, the robberies were committed by two men, one black and the other white, usually wielding a knife and a screwdriver.

Descriptions from victims indicated that almost all the muggings were committed by the same black man, with a different white partner each time, apparently to complicate identification, according to Sgt. Patrick Molloy of the 50th Precinct.

Besides Mr. Sanders, who said he was employed as an attendant at the A&A service station at 730 East Fordham Road, the Bronx, the others arrested—all of the Bronx—were: James. Gisante, 19, of 2840 Marion Avenue, who told the police he was a student at Herbert Lehman College in the Bronx; Michael O'Neill, 19, of 3045 Grand Concourse, who said he was a maintenance man for the New York Telephone Company; Fred Gentile, 17, of 3106 Villa Avenue, who listed himself as a student, and Joqeph Meyet 17. of 2870 Marion Avenue, who said he was student at Bedford Park Academy, a private school.

The five were arraigned in Bronx Criminal Court last night. Mr. Sanders was held on $10,000 bail; Mr. Gentile, $2,000; and the others, $1,500 each. Their case was adjourned until Wednesday.

The arrests were made after three separate holdups. All three victims had alighted from a northbound IRT train at Broadway and 231st Street at midnight. After waiting 45 minutes for a bus to Riverdale, they decided to walk home.

One of the victims, a kosher caterer who, like the others, asked that his name be withheld for fear of future attacks, recounted in an interview:

“Suddenly, I see a van behind me, maybe 600 feet. Two guys jump out, one with a ski mask. I start to run. They grab my attache case. I said I had

no money. They took the case,” He said one of the men slashed at his coat with a knife. leaving a 4‐inch rip in the fabric. Meanwhile, the van had pulled ahead of them. on Paliade Avenue near Edsall Avenue flue. The two robbers then jumped in and it drove off, he said.

About five minutes later, the second man was robbed at knifepoint nearby as he was entering a building on Hudson Manor Terrace. The robbers slashed his sleeveless sweater almost in two, but he was not cut.

A few minutes later, the third man was mugged, near 2284 Palisade Avenue.

Meanwhile the first two victims had called the police and described the van. Patrolmen David Flynn and James Walsh, in a patrol car, saw the van minutes later at 230th Street and Riverdale Avenue. They forced it to stop after a threeblock chase.

One of the mugging victims, who Was rushed to the scene in a police car, identified two of the five men as his assailants.

We are continually improving the quality of our text archives. Please send feedback, error reports,
and suggestions to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.

A version of this archives appears in print on February 21, 1972, on Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: 5 Arrested in Bronx as a Mobile Gang. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe